


(Coffee's For Closers)

by jonnyhustle



Category: Hockey RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - Coffee Shops & Cafés, Alternate Universe - College/University, Fluff, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-16
Updated: 2015-03-16
Packaged: 2018-03-18 04:19:32
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,879
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3555776
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jonnyhustle/pseuds/jonnyhustle
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tyler Seguin and Patrick Kane are roommates, but Jonny kind of is as well since he never seems to leave. Jamie's just a barista who has to put up with Tyler's shit.</p><p>  <i><br/>“Dude,” Kaner says, voice still rough, “Your class starts in like seven minutes.”</i></p><p>  <i>Thirty seconds have passed, and Kaner’s still sitting on Tyler’s bed by the time he’s dressed and throwing everything he needs for class in his backpack. </i></p><p>  <i>“You stink, man,” Kaner says, wrinkling his nose as he curls up on Tyler’s bed, getting comfortable when he has no right to be.</i></p><p>  <i>“Get off my bed,” Tyler says, pausing only to slap his roommate, “what’s wrong with yours?”</i></p><p>  <i>“Wet patch,” Kaner answers, looking smug even with his eyes shut. </i></p><p>  <i>“That’s why you waited so long to wake me up,” Tyler states, looking over at Kaner’s empty bed.</i></p><p>  <i>“Yep.”</i></p><p>  <i>“I’m going to kill you,” he says through clenched teeth, and he wants to do it now, he does, but he needs to get across campus and to his lecture first before he throws himself into long-term commitments like murder and vengeance.</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	(Coffee's For Closers)

When Tyler wakes up to his alarm, he has a moment of relief. It’s still dark out, and when he looks over, Jonny and Kaner are still impossibly entwined together as they sleep on Pat’s king single. Tyler doesn’t get it, how they can sleep like that day-in-day-out without having to get their spines removed. Or, maybe they have had it removed, since the position they’re in suggests they don’t have many bones. 

Seriously, Tyler doesn’t know if he could even pull that pose, let alone comfortably sleep in it.

But, that’s not the point. The point is that he’s relieved. He doesn’t actually have to get up, obviously, if the sun’s not up yet, if Jonny’s not. He has at least another hour, and his alarm is still going off but Tyler obviously just fucked up. 

He set the alarm too early by mistake; he gets to go back to sleep.

Kaner grumbles then, on the edge of consciousness, because even though Jonny’s the one up at the asscrack of dawn every morning, Kaner’s the light sleeper. Jon’s just not a morning person; he can sleep through just about anything as was proven the first night the fire alarm in their building went off.

Kaner and Tyler had been halfway down the corridor before Pat had stopped, taking a headcount of himself and Tyler and obviously coming up one person short. He’d sworn under his breath, and Tyler had wondered how they’d even gotten out of the room without realising that Jonny was still passed out in bed, but it was the middle of the night and exams were coming up and the alarm was so loud you’d have to be deaf to sleep through it. Seriously.

“You’re fucking kidding,” Kaner had said, already turning back to their room, “I’ll meet you downstairs, Ty.”

Tyler had just shrugged. He’d ended up taking pleasure in knocking his fists against the closed doors of the rooms he passed on his way out. If he had to be up and functional, or borderline functional as it were, so did every other person in the building, he decided. 

Students were just milling around, evacuating like they were on a slow and casual stroll, as if they weren’t being threatened with the very promise of a fiery death. Tyler got it, he did, it was cold and everyone was still half asleep, had literally been asleep three minutes ago probably. None of that mattered though, because the sooner they got out of the building, the sooner they could go back to bed and pretend none of this had happened. Tyler hadn’t been able to wait, he was looking forward to it too much.

He’d only been on the quad for a few minutes, freezing his ass off even though he’d been layered in sweats, a tank top, t-shirt and hoodie, when the crowd around him had started up a frenzied whisper. It was like Chinese Whispers, the way Tyler was hearing bits and pieces of the same sentence but slightly varied all around him. 

At first he thought that maybe they’d worked out who had set the alarm off, but when he turned his best glare on the source of the whispers, he realised he was wrong. Either that, or Jonny had somehow managed to set the alarms off while he was asleep. 

He’d been expecting to see one of the guys from the top floor, the new kid who thought smoking up in the dorm was like a rite of passage and opening a window would be enough to not set the alarm off. Fucking amateur. Instead of the kid, though, he found Jonny.

Jonny, who looked like he was seconds away from falling back asleep, hadn’t even registered that he had half the student body’s attention on him. Kaner had been standing beside him, because of course he were, those two were practically conjoined, looking proud, looking like he was seconds away from returning the high-five the girl beside him was offering.

Tyler narrowed his eyes, not the least bit surprised when Kaner reached his hand out to slap his palm against the girl’s. Both Kaner and the girl were grinning, and he just wanted to slap them both upside the head. 

He rolled his eyes, sighed, headed toward Jonny before his dumb roommate’s dumb boyfriend could, like, lose a testicle to exposure. The crowd had let out a collective groan when Tyler shrugged his hoodie off, handing it over to Jonny, muttered, “Dude, cover up,” as if Jonny could even process those three words right then. Jonny had only blinked at the material, and then looked down at himself as if he were visually confirming that he did, in fact, need to be wearing that hoodie and not be standing in the quad, in the middle of winter, in nothing but boxer-briefs that left absolutely nothing to the imagination. 

Even Kaner had looked disappointed when Jonny covered up, shooting a betrayed look at Tyler. 

“I cannot believe you,” Tyler said in response, crossing his arms because, fuck, now _he_ was cold.

“He just looked so good,” Patrick whined, and Tyler clicked that Patrick wasn’t complaining so much about Jonny covering up as he was complaining over no longer being able to shamelessly stare at the marks he’d left on Jonny’s hips.

And, seriously, it had looked as if Jon had been mauled, and Tyler knew that he hadn’t been, absolutely could _not_ have been because Tyler had slept in their dorm room every night that week and so had Jonny and Pat. 

They’d signed an agreement when they moved in, promising that that they would not sleep with anyone while the other person was in the room, even if that person was unconscious or dead (“I don’t think that needs to be specified,” Tyler had said, “I’m not going to see your dead body and prioritise getting laid,” Patrick had just shaken his head, said, “You can’t say that until it happens,” like he was actually planning on dying in the dorm room just before Tyler, like, got it on). 

“I swear to God,” he’d said, pointing his finger at Kaner, “if you did that while I was asleep in the room then I am going to kill you, and then I will have celebratory sex to commemorate the occasion.”

And, honestly, Tyler had never seen Kaner look so offended as he did in that moment.

He just did not get his roommate at all. What the fuck.

By the time the building had been given the all clear, Jonny had woken up enough to realise he was standing in the middle of a large group of people wearing nothing but Tyler’s hoodie and his underwear.

“You couldn’t even give me your hoodie?” He’d said, turning to his boyfriend with an expression that very much matched Tyler’s. 

Kaner had shrugged, “I was cold,” he’d said, as if he weren’t the worst boyfriend in the history of boyfriends. 

The sound Kaner made when Jonny punched him on the shoulder, hard and unrelenting, felt to Tyler as if it were worth every minute he spent freezing out in the quad that night. 

He’ll truly remember the moment fondly every time Kaner does something to piss him off. 

Like now, when Kaner says, “Don’t you have class?” and his voice is truly and utterly wrecked. Tyler’s tempted to get out of bed, away from his blankets and sleep, if only for the sole reason of punching both Kaner and Jonny.

He’s going to start keeping a spray bottle of water beside his bed, will spray it on them whenever they get too close to one another.

“You said you’d stop fucking when I was in the room,” Tyler whines, actually whines because God fucking dammit his roommate, “you promised.”

“Sorry,” Kaner says, sounding anything but.

Tyler doesn’t bother to check the time when he turns away from his roommate’s bed. He’s in his second year of college; he’s got this. 

At least, he thinks he does until there’s a weight dropping on his bed and a hand on his face, poking and prodding him awake.

“Fucking what,” he groans, pushing at the hand that’s violating him, “stop fucking touching me I know where that hand has been.”

Kaner’s grinning when Tyler opens his eyes, because of course he is. 

It’s Kaner we're talking about here, not a decent human being.

“Stop thinking where your hands have been,” Tyler warns.

The light’s too bright and it’s hot, but Tyler still tries to hunch in on himself and put the pillow over his face so he doesn’t get blinded, so he doesn’t have to see Kaner’s stupid fucking mug whenever he tries to blink the light out of his eyes.

“Dude,” Kaner says, voice still rough, “Your class starts in like seven minutes.”

And that? That gives Tyler the motivation he needs to get up and out of bed. 

Thirty seconds have passed, and Kaner’s still sitting on Tyler’s bed by the time he’s dressed and throwing everything he needs for class in his backpack. He grabs a protein bar, and he knows that it’s from Jonny’s stash, but he has no fucks to give anymore. 

“You stink, man,” Kaner says, wrinkling his nose as he curls up on Tyler’s bed, getting comfortable when he has no right to be.

“Get off my bed,” Tyler says, pausing only to slap his roommate, “what’s wrong with yours?”

“Wet patch,” Kaner answers, looking smug even with his eyes shut. 

“That’s why you waited so long to wake me up,” Tyler states, looking over at Kaner’s empty bed.

He’s tempted to just light it on fire.

“Yep.”

“I’m going to kill you,” he says through clenched teeth, and he wants to do it now, he does, but he needs to get across campus and to his lecture first before he throws himself into long-term commitments like murder and vengeance.

***

There’s a coffee cart outside his lecture theatre, and Tyler doesn’t know if it has a name or how long it’s been there, but he doesn’t care. In fact, the only thing he cares about when contemplating the coffee cart is: A) whether or not the coffee bean supply is large enough in the case of an apocalypse, and, B) that one cute barista, Jamie Benn, that Tyler had shared a class with once. 

He also enjoys the vending machine conveniently placed just a couple of feet away, indulges in a sugar-free Red Bull while waiting in line.

College is a magical place, he decides, and somehow he’s only a couple of minutes late for the lecture but he’s fine. He’s fine. He’s scarred from too much exposure to Patrick Kane, and he’s probably going to have a heart attack, but it’s fine. 

Honestly, the only thing he has to stress about is where his family will pull the bail funds from when he gets arrested for Kaner’s murder, because that’s just the way things are heading right now. 

Tyler doesn’t do Monday mornings, and Kaner doesn’t not do Jonny, and these things clash. 

He’s so caught up in his own thoughts that he doesn’t realise he’s next in line until he unceremoniously gets an elbow to the spine. 

“Shit, sorry,” he mumbles, stepping up to the counter, “can I just get–”

He doesn’t know what he wants, so he takes a moment that he really doesn’t have to take a mouthful of Red Bull and glance up at the menu. He doesn’t feel like anything fancy, or anything with too much sugar, but he doesn’t want something plain like black coffee either. 

He wants Jamie to think he’s cool, not pretentious. 

The guy behind him mutters something that Tyler chooses not to hear, and instead of panicking and blurting out the first thing that comes to mind, he deliberately takes up almost another sixty seconds before simply ordering the plain black coffee he doesn't even really want.

Jamie looks like he’s holding back a laugh when the guy behind Tyler scoffs, disbelieving. 

“Shut up, man,” Tyler says, turning around, then playing deliberately obtuse, “he’s going as fast as he can.”

Jamie actually laughs then, and Tyler can’t stop the grin that spreads across his own face. 

Jamie’s cute, maybe a bit more quiet than Tyler’s usual type, but he gets it, wishes he had it, and by ‘it’ he means Jamie. Obviously.

He doesn’t pick up the cup and disappear immediately when his coffee is ready, partly because he has an idea and partly because he wants to piss off Next In Line Guy just a little bit more. He’s running late, and he doesn’t have the time for this, but he has a half-empty can of Red Bull in one hand and triple-shot coffee in the other and he’s not walking into a lecture like that. That's just asking to be tripped and spill everything ever everywhere.

He leaves the coffee on the counter, removes the lid and takes a second to appreciate the steam coming off of it, the smell of it. He slowly pours the Red Bull into the to-go cup, careful not to spill anything, studiously ignoring the stare of Next In Line Guy. 

“Hey, hey,” Jamie says, suddenly appearing in front of Tyler even though a second ago he was making Next In Line Guy’s drink. 

The guy groans, doesn’t even try to hide it, and Tyler and Jamie take a moment to exchange a grin once more.

“You can’t do that here,” Jamie starts, “you’re going to kill yourself,” he drops his voice to a whisper, like he needs Tyler to understand the gravity of the situation, “you’re going to die.”

Tyler nods, looking from the barista, to his drink, to Next In Line Guy who’s shooting him murder eyes, then back to his drink, “I’m going to die,” he agrees.

He crumples the can and tries to throw it into the trash on the other side of the counter. 

Jamie just laughs when he misses, and Tyler’s not even embarrassed about his lousy shot.

 

***

The lecture drags on after Tyler finishes his drink and he just can’t sit still. _Surprise._ He’s the first person zipping up his bag when the Professor finally, finally, begins winding down the conversation, and he’s definitely the first person out the door even while the Professor is saying, “If you just wait a couple more minutes, I’m not done yet,” as if it’s not already too late. 

Tyler might have been the first, but he’s not the only one who has decided that the time dictates the closing point of the lecture more than the words being spoken by the Professor.

He’s got this buzzing beneath his skin and he doesn’t know what to do about it. He thinks that he needs to eat, maybe, but his budget says anything fancier than ramen isn’t worth it and will severely cut into his booze fund. The protein bar he stole from Jonny sits in his bag, but he doesn’t feel like putting more sugar into his body is what he needs right now. 

He keeps an eye on Jamie at the coffee cart as he leaves the building, considers doubling back and just asking him out until he realises that no, that’s not just a group of students congregating in the area, that’s the actual line. 

He cuts across the quad, is too eager to get back into his room, his bed, that he doesn’t register the dirty looks the girl in the hallway shoots him or the way no one else on the floor is looking him in the eyes. 

He asks someone, “What?” but doesn’t get more than a, “Sorry, man,” and an apologetic pat on the back.

He doesn’t let himself focus on it, though, just goes back to thinking about asking Jamie out. He could do it. He could totally do it. All he has to do is go back to the cart and ask him out for coffee or something. Or, maybe not coffee.

Tyler doesn’t know. Would someone who spent the whole day around coffee want to–

“Jesus fucking Christ,” he swears, slapping his hand to his face so quickly he’s briefly worried he broke his own nose when he’s flooded with pain, “learn to lock the fucking door.”

Jonny and Pat are in the middle of it, because of course they are. At least they seem to do it just as often when Tyler’s not in as they do when he’s asleep, because he was starting to worry that they were trying to proposition him or something. He’d rather gouge his eyes out then watch Kaner do it, if he were being honest. 

He decides to voice this opinion, isn’t surprised when he just gets a, “fucking get out,” in response. 

They don’t bother stopping though, and the hand across Tyler’s eyes is doing absolutely nothing to disguise that fact. Not when they’re being as loud as they are, and, huh, Tyler suddenly understands the looks he was getting in the hallway.

The people on this floor totally think Kaner and Tyler are getting it on, must hear Kaner and Jonny every night. Then he realises what it must have looked like; that night last year when the three of them came down, Jonny covered in sex bruises and Tyler lending him clothes; every morning when the three of them walk out of the room that almost constantly reeks of sex and sweat and boys. 

Tyler drops his bag on the floor, slams the door shut behind him and refuses to look up from his shoes on the way back to the coffee cart. The pain in his nose has dulled, thankfully, and there’s no blood. He’s just really pleased he doesn’t have to answer the question, “So, what brings you here today?” with, “My roommates were having sex and I accidentally punched myself in the face.”

Kaner would have never let it go, and, besides, he has no one to drive him to the hospital.

Jamie’s still at the cart when Tyler gets there. It closes for a couple of hours over lunch, when the students are awake enough after their morning coffees but not in need of something to get them through the afternoon just yet, so he’s wiping down the benches and soaking different parts of the coffee machine. Tyler watches in silence, listening as Jamie hums something under his breath, laughs when disappointed students walk away from the counter as soon as they realise they’re going to have to walk to the café further away if they’re determined to have coffee.

Tyler doesn’t know what to do, just stands there until Jamie’s turning to him, saying, “No, no,” like he needs to be stern, “I don’t think you need any more caffeine today.”

Tyler scoffs, because it’s true. He’d probably never sleep again if he had any more caffeine, but he’s probably never going to be able to again anyway without seeing Jonny and Patrick doing the do.

“I’m not here for coffee,” he settles on.

Jamie makes a point of looking around the small cart, looks at the empty pastry cabinet and then the till.

“If you’re trying to rob me you’re not do a very good job,” he adds, eyes narrowed in accusation, “we had a class together last semester. I know who you are.” 

“Jesus, no,” Tyler sighs, then, “Yeah? You know who I am?”

He can’t help how hopeful he sounds, but he crosses his fingers that Jamie chooses to ignore it.

“Sure I do, Tyler,” he offers up, “everyone in the dorm knows you, Pat and Jonny.”

Tyler groans, because of fucking course that’s his legacy. He didn’t even know Jamie was living in the same building. 

“Look,” Tyler says, choosing to ignore the rest, “I don’t want to rob you. I just wanted to see if, maybe, you wanted to get coffee?” 

Jamie’s face doesn’t get any softer. If anything, his expression turns into even more of a bitchface.

“You want to get coffee,” he says, voice flat, “with me.”

Tyler nods, wonders if he’s deeply insulting Jamie’s honour or something, because that’s the vibe he’s getting here.

“You,” Jamie reiterates, like he’s just fact checking here, “who I watched pour a Red Bull into a triple shot coffee this morning, want to get coffee with me.”

Tyler nods. 

“What about Jonny and Patrick?” 

“I don’t want to see either of those two ever again,” Tyler says, honestly. 

Jamie hesitates, searches for something on Tyler’s face before coming to a decision. He must find whatever it was he was looking for because he nods. 

“I’m still not getting coffee with you though,” and that’s it, Tyler can feel his stomach drop, “I’ve spent the entire morning making coffee, and something tells me you don’t need me to enable your caffeine habit.”

“We could get Mexican?” Tyler offers instead, hopeful.

He doesn't really have the cash for it, but he could stretch his budget a bit, guilt trip Jonny into cooking them dinner more often since neither Pat or Tyler can cook for shit.

Jamie laughs, and Tyler takes that as a yes. He deliberates getting a Red Bull from the vending machine while he waits for Jamie to finish up closing the cart, but the warning glare Jamie shoots him convinces him to stay by the counter instead.

He doesn’t regret it, after, when they get through lunch and Tyler’s heart palpitations are most likely due to nerves and not an oncoming heart attack. 

Jamie laughs endearingly when Tyler tells him this theory.

Their hands are clammy when Tyler finally gets the courage to reach for Jamie’s, but neither of them let go. 

Jamie laughs again the next morning when Tyler shows up to the cart with a Red Bull in hand, knows that Jamie’s on shift because Tyler woke up alone in Jamie’s room. 

To be honest, it was the best night’s sleep he’s had in a while even if he spent most of it awake, trying to learn what Jamie likes. 

His favourite part was when Jamie had just been on the brink of coming, little moans falling from his mouth when he admitted that he’d been thinking about Tyler for a while, that he’s wanted this since the first time they had class together.

“I don’t want to encourage this,” Jamie says earnestly, pointedly looking at the Red Bull Tyler's holding even as he starts making the coffee. 

Tyler shrugs, “I didn’t get a lot of sleep last night,” he says, grinning when Jamie blushes, “I think I deserve it.” 

Jamie rolls his eyes.

“Hey,” Tyler says suddenly, remembering the text he’d woken up to from Kaner. 

As much shit as they gave one another, Patrick and Tyler actually do get along. So, when Tyler didn’t come back to the dorm after walking in on Pat and Jonny, he’d received the text, _‘Sorry, man. We’re okay, right?’_

He just hasn't gotten around to replying yet, but that's fine, he thinks. Kaner can wait it out.

“Yeah?” 

“You should stay over tonight.” 

Jamie nods in answer, leans over the bench to press a chaste kiss to Tyler’s lips.

**Author's Note:**

> Partially inspired by [this](http://khaleesikun.tumblr.com/post/98336180125/my-favorite-college-experience-is-when-i-had-a-7am) post. Also inspired by the 8AM lecture on pedagogical theory I have on Monday mornings, and the ten hours of back-to-back classes that follow. 
> 
> Title's taken from a Fall Out Boy song of the same name. 
> 
> [My Tumblr is here](http://toestoewstazer.tumblr.com).
> 
> (Sidenote: I also noticed that I tend to blend both Australian and American spelling depending on how functional of a person I am at the time of writing. If it's something that distracts you from reading, **please** let me know and I'll make more of an effort)


End file.
